Speaking of projects, M. Simon has written about this one.

A practical issue with “non-petroleum energy sources”, is that our transportation sector infrastructure will have to be replaced, that will be both expensive and time-consuming, and the transition period will be long. We use a lot of energy, and any useful alternative will have to provide a lot of energy in useful forms.

China’s leadership has recognized that Marxism/Leninism has failed, but they’ve been steeped in it for so long that their habits of thought have been shaped by it. So they aren’t exactly Communists anymore, aren’t trying to be, but they can’t help lapsing into Communist-thought on occasion.

By comparison, development of new energy sources has to take place in the context of a highly complex production, distributiion and use context, with cost as a major driver and multiple externally imposed constraints (land use, environmental factors, installed base, politics) and in the face of a well established, cost effective and convenient baseline (fossil fuels).

Substantial funding has gone into alternative energy sources over the past several decades, so funding alone is not the reason for the slow progress. As fossil fuels become more expensive, and as alternatives slowly become cost effective, there will be a changeover. Given the large cost of creating an alternative distribution system (or production capability in the case of ‘building-centric’ technologies), the alternatives will need to either fit into the exisiting paradigm or be really cheap.

And lo and behold, all of Kerry�s inflammatory statements have been edited out of his clip. They cut out Kerry�s �international pariah� statement, and his Kyoto Protocol stuff. They also cut out the bits about viewing the world through �an American lens.�

Looks like someone�s been trying to make sure they don�t have any Eason Jordan moments slipping out to the hoi polloi.

Then there’s the BBC’s censorship of Chas himself:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24179_BBC_Message_Boards_Ban_Another_LGF_Thread&only

Think creatively all you want. Tell us why this project will be like the Manhattan project and not like one of the later Manhattan projects, including those aimed at energy independence, such as Synfuels. You remember them – they were initially promoted as “another Manhattan project” yet turned out to be another big govt project disaster, never to be mentioned by folks promoting big govt projects.

The Manhattan project was an anomaly in that it mostly succeeded. That’s why folks arguing for big govt projects to solve problems use it and not one of the many other big govt projects.

I’m not afraid of the government except that it is incompetent when it comes to big projects. Especially as Photon pointed out, public projects in a political environment. The Defense Department in a time of war does pretty well, but, they tend to contract out construction.
See the innovation in ship building from the Liberty ship era.

If there is a single agreed on solution then government could make a Manhattan style project work. But we’re not there now. There are too many people invested in marginally effective alternatives to allow the government to back innovation. It isn’t even mostly the bureaucracy, it’s the politics (see grain state legislators) and the lobbyists.

I fully agree that GWB has been a failure as a salesman and in getting the American public engaged. If the MSM wasn’t so full of BDS maybe he would have been good enough, but, I doubt it.

It’s ironic that the Deng quote was made in terms of increasing capitalist, free market type policies.

Screwed up the Hawking analogy it wasn’t string theory it was the “information paradox” which he recently agreed was a mistake. So, phyicists spent 25 years in his dead end. That’s what we have done and are doing with government supported alternative energy programs.

It was Hawking’s own work that created the paradox. In 1976, he calculated that once a black hole forms, it starts losing mass by radiating energy. This “Hawking radiation” contains no information about the matter inside the black hole and once the black hole evaporates, all information is lost.

But this conflicts with the laws of quantum physics, which say that such information can never be completely wiped out. Hawking’s argument was that the intense gravitational fields of black holes somehow unravel the laws of quantum physics.

After nearly 30 years of arguing that a black hole destroys everything that falls into it, Stephen Hawking is saying he was wrong. It seems that black holes may after all allow information within them to escape.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6151

I’m aware that China has been experimenting with free enterprise. And I will admit that I am not up to speed since I was pleasantly surprised to learn here that China allows foreign investment in a stock market that I did not know existed.
While I agree that economic freedom is a powerful move in the right direction, I still see China’s control over its citizens, the lack of personal freedom, its political system (how leadership is decided) etc. as much more communist than not.
But if using economic freedom as the prime characteristic, you’ve convinced me that you are right.

As for your tariff proposal, interesting.

I would note that the Manhattan Project was conducted *in secret*. Had it been conducted openly, in anything resembling today’s climate, then it would have likely been derailed by a combination of (1)”practical” people arguing that it was impossible and way too expensive, (2)ship and tank builders concerned about diversion of resources from their products, (3)”peace-oriented” individuals arguing against its inhumanity. I’m not sure ever FDR could have pulled it off.

Returning to the present situation: How about: a tariff on *imported* oil that starts at (say) $2/bbl immediately and is preset to rise at $3/bbl/year thereafter? This would mitigate one of the major concerns of those developing alternative energy programs: the fear of a drop in oil prices that would make their investments economically unsustainable, and thus accelerate the deployment of these alternatives.